Villa Gesell is a town located on the coast of the Argentine Sea, 370 kilometers from Buenos Aires; every summer, it fills with young people and families vacationing at the beach. The death by asphyxiation of Isabella, a two-year-old girl, cast a pall over the festive atmosphere the town usually projects, as it became the setting for a case that has shocked the nation.
Her mother, Lucía Sosa, was arrested in connection with the incident; she had previously been investigated for the deaths of two other daughters under similar circumstances. One of her older children—who had been given up for adoption to another family when he was young—described his mother as an “aggressive and heartless person” and demanded that she be “imprisoned or placed in a psychiatric facility.”
Isabella, who was just days away from turning three, was brought to the Villa Gesell Municipal Hospital on Tuesday, July 21, with no vital signs; attempts to resuscitate her were unsuccessful. An autopsy determined that she died of asphyxiation caused by an obstruction in her respiratory tract.
The case drew significant attention due to the death itself and the mother’s history. Her daughter Candela, six months old, died in 2013, and Yazmín, eleven months old, died in 2016. Regarding the second case, the woman spent two years in custody—as did her partner at the time, Héctor Javier Picart (the father of six of her nine children)—facing charges of sexual abuse and homicide. Ultimately, both were acquitted.
Following those events, Sosa, 43, moved from the city of Mar del Plata to Villa Gesell—located 100 kilometers away—where she entered into a new relationship and had two more children: Isabella and an older boy, currently four years old, who has been placed in judicial custody following the recent events. In the past, the woman had already lost custody of four other children due to suspicions of child abuse and creating an “unsuitable living environment,” according to the local newspaper *La Nación*. Some of those children were placed in foster care, while others were adopted by families.
On Monday afternoon—nearly a week after Isabella’s death—a police vehicle arrived at Sosa’s home to take her into custody as neighbors shouted demands for justice for the child. Sosa faces a charge of “abandonment resulting in death, aggravated by the parental relationship,” and is expected to give a statement in the coming hours. Meanwhile, Isabella’s body will not be released until the requested forensic tests are completed.
José Daniel Aguirre, Isabella’s father, recounted that on July 21, he found his daughter “lying on the bed” when he returned from work; she no longer had a pulse. “I picked her up in my arms and ran out through the hallway to the sidewalk and over to a workshop where there was a pickup truck, begging them to take the little girl,” said Aguirre, who maintains that the incident was “an accident.” He stated that he was completely unaware of Sosa’s legal history and did not even know of the existence of Lucas Ruiz—one of her sons—who spoke to the media after the child’s death became public.
Ruiz is 17 years old and was put up for adoption when he was young, after experiencing violence in the home. “I want Lucía Sosa to be in prison or a psychiatric facility. She is an aggressive, heartless person. You can’t have three children and murder them,” he said in an interview with the news channel TN. “It’s a story repeating itself. We thought this chapter had closed many years ago. We fought hard—for me and my siblings—for nearly ten years, and seeing this person’s case back on TV, having killed another one of my sisters, hurts deeply,” he stated.
The teenager stated that for years he had warned about his mother’s dangerous nature and questioned the judicial system’s attempts to force a reconnection with her against his will—even though he had asked to “get out of that house,” which he described as an “ugly, very dark” place. He recounted that his story began when he was just 21 days old; he was admitted to the Mar del Plata Maternal and Child Hospital after suffering respiratory arrest due to poisoning. From then on, he was placed under the care of the *Hogares de Belén* (Bethlehem Homes) organization and began a process that culminated in his adoption by his current family.
“I was beaten severely, especially during the reconnection process. On my third birthday, I was forced to go to that house, and it was one of the worst beatings I ever received. They used to pull my ears. For years, I suffered an injury because they were constantly yanking on them,” he said regarding his relationship with his biological family.
The teenager is scheduled to testify as a witness this week in the case being investigated by Prosecutor Juan Pablo Calderón, head of the Functional Instruction Unit (UFI) No. 4 in Pinamar, within the Dolores Judicial Department. His testimony will also be recorded,
